Tragic mistake leaves wrong family in mourning

Laura VanRyn (left) and Whitney Cerak shared a strong resemblance.

LOS ANGELES - For more than a month, the VanRyn family of Michigan believed their daughter Laura was making a slow but steady recovery from a horrific traffic accident that killed five of her fellow students at a Christian college in Indiana.

They set up an internet weblog to track her progress in recognising every day objects and playing simple children's games.

As she recovered from an initial coma, though, a terrible truth began to dawn on them: this was not their daughter at all, but someone else entirely.

Yesterday, the family confirmed there had been a terrible case of mistaken identity.

Laura VanRyn was killed in the April 26 collision between a university minivan and a tractor-trailer.

The young woman they thought was Laura was in fact a fellow student who bore a remarkable resemblance to her.

And so the cycles of grieving and recovery have been abruptly reversed.

The student who survived, Whitney Cerak, had been assumed to be dead.

Indeed, her family held a funeral service for her several weeks ago which attracted more than 1000 mourners.

Unknown to anyone, though, the body in the coffin was VanRyn's.

A memorial service for VanRyn is now scheduled for this weekend.

Both students were classically good-looking Midwestern girls, with hearty complexions and long blonde hair.

The mistake originated at the accident scene, as survivors failed to make a proper identification of their fellow students.

Since handbags were strewn all over the accident sight, there was no easy way to confirm their identities, and nobody thought to conduct any analysis of blood types or dental records.

The confusion was not helped by the fact that Cerak's face was swollen and badly bruised.

Lisa VanRyn, Laura's mother, wrote on her blog: "Our hearts are aching as we have learned that the young woman we have been taking care of over the past five weeks has not been our dear Laura... It is uncanny the resemblance that these two women share."

- INDEPENDENT